MTS criticized for donating to Palestinian teachers

A Manitoba Jewish teacher is “disgusted” by her union’s declaration of support for Palestinian teachers and a $5,000 donation to an organization that supports them.

The Manitoba Teachers’ Society announced it is giving $5,000 to the General Union of Palestinian Teachers through Education International’s solidarity fund.

The union posted a photo of the Palestinian flag on social media; the caption said: “MTS stands in solidarity with Palestinian teachers.”

The teacher said she’s upset her union is sending money to the group that should be spent on local teachers and students.

“I was as disgusted as I was not surprised,” said the teacher, who requested anonymity out of fear of retribution.

“MTS taking my union dues… giving it away to an organization that may or may not actually reach the children who need them.”

Education International represents 383 teachers trade unions in 178 countries.

On Nov. 5, the organization issued a plea for renewed solidarity with Palestinian educators in Gaza and the West Bank in light of a ceasefire and peace agreement reached in the Gaza Strip in October.

Teachers must rebuild their classrooms in “uncertain” times, the organization wrote online.

The teacher said MTS has done a poor job of advocating for, and protecting, Jewish teachers.

She is among a group of Jewish educators that has raised similar complaints about the union.

“MTS has not stood with their Jewish teachers at all, despite the fact that antisemitism is more prevalent than all the other hate crimes combined,” she said.

In 2023, Statistics Canada reported 1,284 religion-based, police-reported hate crimes across the country. Of them, 900 were made against Jews.

In an emailed statement, MTS president Lillian Klausen defended the decision and said the union cares about local students and teachers just as much as it does colleagues around the world.

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The teachers society has made monetary donations in the past, including to Ukraine, when that country’s union sent out an international call to help Ukrainian teachers.

The union publicly supported Russian teachers in 2004 after a terrorist attack killed 334 staff and students at a school in Beslan, Klausen said.

“Some may look at providing these relief funds to Palestinian teachers unions as a political exercise, but that’s not it. It’s a matter of education. Education is a pathway to peace,” the statement read.

Manitoba has mandated Holocaust education for grades 6, 9 and 11 as of the current academic year. The curriculum explores the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, the creation of ghettos and concentration camps, Canada’s response to Jewish refugees, and the lasting effects of the genocide on the world.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.